A STRICT DIET OF APPROVAL

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes
~ Kaylin Haught

I'd like to put you on a strict diet. Of approval, that is.

Saying NO

Most of the time, the voices in our heads are extraordinarily harsh and critical. You know the ones I am talking about, right? If you spoke to a friend the way you spoke to your self, you wouldn't have any more friends.

As you give sway to these voices in your head, you are indulging in a sort of IV drip of constant self-disapproval. Disapproval is a big, fat NO, and it brings you down, down, and further down. And you disapprove a great deal more of the time than you approve, am I correct?

For this rampant affliction, I like to recommend a strict diet of self-approval. Begin to buck the trend in your mind, and begin to approve.

Think back to a time when you were falling in love with someone. It is almost like you were wearing tinted glasses that cast a rosy hue on this person, in which everything they did was charming, even things you would ordinarily consider annoying or disgusting. But you were in love with them, and their habits became transmogrified to be endearing.

It is this I am suggesting you cultivate with yourself. Yes, I am serious. As a daily regimen, begin to smother yourself with approval. Self-adoration, even. Fall in love. Begin to find charming and endearing even the things you would ordinarily consider annoying or disgusting. Especially these things. Cultivate an unshakable partnership - with yourself first.

You might start to whine and tell me there is nothing gorgeous, charming, brilliant or delicious about you. But that is just because you have spent the last 20, 30, 40, whatever, years disapproving, so that is what feels real.

This is different than positive thinking. Honestly, I hate positive thinking.

I am not suggesting you lie to yourself or blow smoke up your own ass.

This is shifting your attention from disapproving of yourself to approving.

It's simple, but it's harder than you think.

You can start slow. This is a strange, new concept perhaps, but somewhere you know I am right. So start.

Saying YES

You may have to start small in order to locate your long atrophied muscles of approval. You've spent your lifetime building a strong case for your disapproval, and have spent years collecting evidence to back it up. Time to start gathering new evidence. Time to start building the muscles of approval.

Sometimes you've just got to say enough already, and just do it. Begin to approve of yourself as a rule. Add more YES into your life. Admire the way you handled a situation, that you spoke up, that you picked your nose and no one noticed, the fact that you bought yourself dinner, the light on your hair, the arc of your beautiful neck, a new muscle, whatever.

Slather yourself with compliments even when you don't feel like it. Especially when you don't feel like it.

I will let you in on one of the great universal secret truths: whatever you put your attention on, grows. Put your attention on how much you suck, and you suck. Put your intention on noticing your talent, your gorgeousness, your sweetness, and you are talented, gorgeous, sweet.

When you begin to say YES to yourself with your approval, you begin to go up, and to light up. You begin to be the radiant, lit-up creature that is your birthright. Simple, but not necessarily easy. But so worth it.

Zen masters often refer to the mind as a drunk monkey tied to a tree. We've all got a personal drunk monkey. My strong recommendation is to put the crazy simian chorus to good use. Come back from the dark side, and use the voices for good, not evil; for health, radiance, and joy rather than self-deprecation and self-loathing.

Again, the point is not to eradicate all un-healthy voices from your head, but to gently start shifting your refrain from one of self-hatred to one of true self-appreciation. Harness your voices, and use them for your own good, and thus for the good of others.

You might be thinking, I can't say good things about myself, that's bragging, that's boasting and that's bad. The conventional view of saying anything nice about yourself is that it unfairly elevates you and hence puts others down.

Upon a closer look I say there is a big difference between things said or thought with the intention to put someone down, and things said or thought with the intention to celebrate, to praise, to make the whole room light up.

I will go so far as to say that one of the most generous things you can do is enjoy and celebrate yourself with yourself, and in the presence of others.

It can take time to turn the boat around, and it may feel like work, and most of the time you really won't feel like it. But eventually, it will be second nature, and you will be causing an epidemic of self-enjoyment, and will find yourself at the epicenter of the party of your life.

As you begin to approve of yourself more and more, you are moving toward YES, you are taking new actions, which begins to re-wire your mind.  I go more in depth into this concept of "re-wiring" in Shifting Any Pattern: The 3 Essential Steps. This diet of approval is far from frivolous - it is a set of vital new action on your part. New actions and thoughts are a vital part of shifting any pattern.

Go to Shifting Any Pattern: The 3 Essential Steps
Back to Relationship With Yourself